46 c1udes author, newsletter publisher, indus- try analyst, pundit, venture capitalist, civil- liberties lobbyist, and accumulator of more frequent-flier miles than anyone on earth. In the computer world, though, Dyson is known chiefly as the organizer of PC Forum, an annual event where the high- tech élite gather for a relaxing few days to discuss lofty matters in a swanky hotel ballroom while ducking out regularly into the hallway to throw money at each other. As the impresario behind PC Forum, Dyson has helped to propel one of the signature innovations of modern capital- ism: the commodification of schmooze. Schmooze, of course, has always been with us. What's new is the rise, with the information economy, of a switched-on, plugged-in business class with a seem- ingly insatiable appetite for talking to it- self-and a startling willingness to pay for the privilege. Dyson's fellow schmooze merchants include Klaus Schwab, the Euro-savvy in- ventor of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which is ground zero for geo-economic schmooze; Phil Lader, currently the United States Ambassador in London, and, more significantly, the creator of Renaissance Weekend, which still sets the standard for post-partisan, touchy-fee1y, slightly Southern-fried schmooze; and Richard Saul Wurman, a Barnumesque kibbitzer with a passion for appalling scarves, whose TED (Tech- nology, Entertainment, Design) con- fabs dominate the market for cultural- industrial schmooze. Dyson is a cyber-schmooze specialist. Although, as Newsweek's Steven Levy re- marked, she herself is "a small-talk.-free zone," Dyson plays the perfect high-tech hostess. At forty-seven, she is elfin and earnest and apparently ubiquitous, and she has a sharp sense of who needs to be hooked up with whom. "Esther," one C.E.O. said, "is the mother of all yentas." Dyson, who attends more than a hun- dred conferences a year, believes that cre- ating the optimal environment for "high- bandwidth" networking is a matter of good planning. Sitting poo1side at PC Forum last month, outside Tucson, she revealed her five rules of schmooze: · Trap the conferencegoers. "Put the event in an out-of-the-way cit)r. You can't come to Tucson and call on clients all da)!. And it's a bear to get here, so once you arrive you're not likely to leave the same da)!." · Own the hotel. "You want to control ). :.f Y :+ l{l t-lf . K;:' ' ,,) ' :'.".,t "V '1 r, ,,' L, /;7 /4' i\.. '1J,/iI.' '\ ':,:::: ' :::: .. , .. ,: , . , :: , " ,.. : ' , : . :,: 'b : " ^ : " ,:,,:, ï , C , ,: , ,:. , . , ' , b . " ": , :, ,:,., ,, . ,::, . ,' , .: .., :,: , ",:"",;. ,:, ...... ",, " : ' ' . f , : j , ,04 , ' " I '-- f . . . 1 , i , ': Jr' .-:-= ' . "',1' ():> , f,;f ) ':' , f , "',::>1.."-;"" :' , " ffPf '" I -.-.: . j.;::: $ Wf';"''::-:..: . 3: '", . 'ø$: ';"" ' ' ' ',' "'; " . :.;1//:'.',' ... ,,>> = ::..::. < ....... 't . / " -r' ..... , , : , : "it,"" , ...", N' ì i, :""- " :::::- :;, ,;., !:: w If " ".""" " '_,', . . ..,....__. ' '":, '-,,,p'V'''''''' " itL ...... . I .J,:. I -----' . - ( U , ' """r.,,"-" "Y _., .,..,.',"...wt' ,- --. t ' 1IJr/ " , ""'''' '," : I ",j :.:... "' 1 ' "" ... - . .. . . ,',: 'L ,1% ::" i i:; ::., , ................ ............. . ........ .... . . "Turning to the City Hall jòrecast, this brief period of contrition will be jòllowed by increasing testiness, leading to major squalls on Monday. " most, if not all, of the rooms, so that the hotel is devoted to you. And that way; when you're in the elevator acting stupid, there won't be some poor woman from the nurses' convention thinking that you're being obnoxious." · Watch the speeches-to-schmoozing ratio. ' ways make sure there's plenty of time for people to go play go or get a drink, or sit by the pool, and not feel they're . . " mIssIng out. · Encourage people to bring their families. "It makes them behave better-they don't get as drunk at night and they don't fool d " aroun . · Close on a high note. "Ideally; you want to have Bill Gates as your last speaker, be- cause then everyone will stay to the end." The demand to be one of the six hun- dred attendees at PC Forum keeps grow- ing, despite a proliferation of high-tech conferences and the fact that Dyson has steadily raised her prices-to almost four thousand dollars a head, not including lodging. "People have tried to bribe their way in," she said. Dyson attributes the Forum's allure to its speakers, who include not just computer types-such as the Netscape boss Jim Barksdale, Michael Dell, and Intel's new C.E.O., Craig Barrett-but people like the Hollywood agent Jeff Berg, the journalist Steven Brill, and the performance artist Anna Deavere Smith. Dyson sneers at most rival conferences, which focus more on "selling stuff than on new ideas," she said. "You show up at some of these things, and Hew1ett- Packard is sponsoring the muffins." Dyson knows that the Forum plays on the deepest fear of the new busi- ness class-being left out of the Next Big Thing. "Paying the price to come to these things is a little like paying pro- tection money," she said. "Whether or not you show up and schmooze, you know that your competitors will. You might not miss anything, but then again you might. And, these days, who can af- ford to risk that?" -JOHN HEILEJ\1ANN TV LAND How Bart and Homer Simpson almost lost their voices. O NE day a couple of weeks ago, in Los @ Angeles, the six actors who supply the voices for "The Simpsons" were greeted with plastic glasses of champagne by the show's staff on the Twentieth Century Fox lot. The night before, four of the actors-Dan Castellaneta, Yeard1ey Smith, Harry Shearer, and Hank Azaria-had reached a new contract settlement with Fox af- ter weeks of contentious negotiations. Only a week earlier, it had looked as if the "Simpsons" actors would walk awa)!. Fox had taken a hard-line stance on their salary demand of a hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars apiece per episode, and had